Beau Beard is a locally-based photographer.
Q: What are some of your influences?
A: Some of my biggest influences in the photography realm would be people like David Yarrow, Peter Lick, Chris Burkhard.
So, David Yarrow, if you've probably seen some of his photos, does a high-contrast, bigger-than-life, black-and-whites. He got famous for, like, a great white photo in particular. And then Peter Lig; the landscape master from Australia. And then Chris Burkhard has this, you know, kind of travel expo style. But, I just like the big format, expansive, where they're full of color, black-and-white, but just a bigger-than-life image—it's really what calls me in.
And then, the story behind it; it's really what the whole purpose of an image is, and all of those guys have such interesting stories. It's how when you hear them talk about when they took a photo, and that's really probably what draws me is there is a picture being told about the story, but then hearing them tell it as well, just adds a little bit more, I guess.
Q: When did you first discover you had a talent for this?
A: I first maybe found out I had a talent with this when I started taking pictures in Colorado—Telluride, Colo.—and Alaska. It's hard to say you have talent, it's hard to talk about stuff like that. But, you know, photography is all about perspective and what's in the eye of the beholder, and I think I have a good, you know, eye for things and kind of pulling out different perspectives whether it's black and white or, you know, a full-frame color. Yeah, I just like to share my perspective.
Q: Where can people see your work?
A: People can check out my work on beaubeard.com, so I have a little gallery there, I have a few prints up for sale. And, @beaubeardphotography on Instagram, and it's just a spattering of the work that I've done over, gosh, now at this point, almost the last 20 years.
And, hopefully I'll have a few local shows coming here actually. Might have one this fall, and then looking to do another one possibly in the spring in the Birmingham, Shelby County area. So, looking forward to that as well.
Q: What’s something interesting about you that people might not know?
A: Something interesting people might not know about me, especially being interested in photography as a side-hustle, if you can call it that, is I'm actually color blind—color deficient. So, in particular, red-green, blue versus purple, brown versus green. So, it's hard for me to discern when those colors are side-by-side. So, people may say, "What's that, you know, look like?" I can see all the colors, but I put them together. It's hard to tell them apart. I actually think that helps me a little bit with photography, and that's kind of my unique view on the world. So, I think, in particular, helps me with black-and-white photography.
